Statewide races for agriculture commissioner and superintendent of
public instruction are still unresolved, in part because of 4,400 lost
ballots in Carteret County. Republican Steve Troxler leads incumbent
Democrat Britt Cobb by fewer than 2,300 votes. Both have filed election
protests based on the foul-up. Bill Fletcher, the Republican candidate
for superintendent of public instruction, wants the state courts to
throw out votes -- known as provisional ballots -- in state and local
races cast by about 10,000 voters who went to the wrong precincts.

LOST BALLOTS

Carteret County lost 4,438 votes during the early-voting period leading
up to Election Day because a computer didn't record them. Three
candidates for state offices have filed protests that cite the lost
votes.

Cleveland County lost 120 ballots on the night of Election Day when
workers retrieved a provisional ballot that had been fed by error into
an optical scan machine. The ballots did not make it back to election
headquarters. Local elections officials say they were left behind at
the polling station and thrown away the next day.

QUESTIONABLE PRACTICES

State elections officials will begin an investigation today of
complaints in Gaston County involving a computer-company technician
working on the elections without adequate supervision, a mismatch
between ballots cast and the number of voters in some precincts, and
the late reporting of early-voting ballots. About 12,000 early votes
from Gaston were not reported for a week after the election.

MISCOUNTS

In Mecklenburg County, votes from some one-stop sites were counted twice, while others weren't counted at all.

Early ballot results were downloaded to laptops, and there were mix-ups in retrieving the data.

Officials found the problem the day after the election, said Elections
Director Michael Dickerson. The new results affected the outcome of
races for county commissioner.

In Yadkin County, about 1,000 votes were counted twice during a manual
tally of write-in votes on optical scan ballots. The local elections
director said officials needed an updated manual to figure out the
proper counting method. The revised count changed the results of a
county commissioner's race.

In Craven County, votes in some precincts were counted twice. The
corrected numbers changed the results of a county commissioner's race.

SOFTWARE LIMITS

Overtaxed computer software in Guilford County threw away thousands of
early voting and absentee ballots as the county reported them to the
state. The system could report only about 32,600 early and absentee
results, said local elections director George Gilbert, but the county
had more than twice that. The county had backup information and was
able to retrieve the ballots.

In Detroit, there have been three mayors in the past two years and the current one has come under scrutiny. Perhaps a system like instant runoff voting will help bring political stability to motor city.